Updating As Work Is Completed
TRUEFIT
Project Description
TrueFit(name hasn't been finalized) is a personal project of mine that I have had lingering in the back of my mind for the past 10 years. The purpose of TrueFit is to help climbers all around the world find climbing shoes that will fit their feet. Not everyone has the luxury to be able to walk into a outdoor store and try on whichever climbing shoe they want. With the help of TrueFit, climbers will be able to find shoes that fit based off of the shoes that they have worn in the past(for new climbers, we base off of the rental shoe that you may have worn your first time). Climbing doesn't always have to be painful on the feet.
Tools: Figma, Figjam, Google Docs, Google Survey, Microsoft Excel
01
RESEARCH
For the start of this project I started at ground zero. The information I needed to get is the model of shoes that climbers have worn along with the shoe size. This part has taken me the longest because it requires me to go thru lines of shoes that everyone has worn and comparing them with other models that they may also have work and then comparing that data with everyone elses.
User Interviews
I didn't go the traditional route with interviews because I needed a mass amount of information. Due to this, I went with a google survey so that I could gather a lot of information at one time.
This, for me, will take the longest because I will have to go thru each line in Google Sheets and start to see what shoes climbers have worn and what size they wore. With climbing, there are two ways of sizing. The first is sizing aggressively, where the shoes are very snug on the toes and you can only wear them for a couple of minutes at a time. The second, is more of a relaxed fit. With the toes still touching the tip of the shoe, but they are more relaxed and easier to wear for longer periods of time.
02
DEFINE
Persona
The persona created, Kevin, was made from all the users who are really only able to purchase climbing shoes online. They are limited to the very small selection that their local gym and outdoor store has.
User Flow
This user flow is based off of how I would want users to move about the application. (No usability testing has been done. User flow will change once feedback is received from testing)
to show users where it may be too snug on their feet
IDEATE
One thing that I know I want to add is a thermal rendering to allow users to see where there are hot spots on the shoe that might bother them. This concept is taking the longest to figure out because it still requires extensive research to find out how each shoe compares with each other.
Being able to see which shoes fits certain feet is super helpful because it will allow climbers to be able to think about if they want performance over comfort and vice versa.
Image from Ocun Climbing website
Thermal rendering is something that I thought would be useful for climbers. Not everyone has the same size feet and not all climbing shoes fit every foot. Being able to see where you may find discomfort will help in seeing whether it will fit wide or narrow feet, which tends to be the biggest hurdle with climbing shoes for most people.
Image from ResearchGate website
Sketches
Wireframes
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USABILITY TESTING
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05
PROTOTYPE
FIRST PROTOTYPE TO BE ADDED
06
CONCLUSION
Next Steps
There have been many bumps along the way that have stopped me from putting my full attention to this project. There are ideas that I have that I want to see if they could work with the application but I need to sketch it out to see where it would fit on the user flow. Aside from this, my next steps for this project are:
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To continue on with research by
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Attaining a lot more data from climbers. I will be looking to posting my survey on Reddit's climbing page. As well as some climbing forums that I know of.
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Analyzing what data I have and creating a chart to keep track of shoe similarities, in regard to the fit of the shoe.
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Creating the thermal image on a climbing shoe to show hot spots and overall areas of discomfort
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Continue working on the structure for each page. I am currently only focusing on a mobile layout but would like to look into having a web page as well.
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Create a medium fidelity prototype to get some user testing done and see if the user flow moves smoothly or if there are any things I need to change.
Reflection
This a big project for me. I have had this in the back of my mind for the past 10 years that I have been climbing and I am now able to start building it up. There have been some challenges at the start, mostly because I spent a good week focusing on editing my portfolio and now focusing on job hunting, it has taken my focus away from the project. Finding a balance has been tricky, but slowly I have gotten into a flow of being able to work on this project and still commit my time to finding work.
There are a lot of things I need to get done and now I can clearly see why a lot is done as a group. For me, I have to pick what I want to prioritize and focus on that before moving on to something else because I do not want to leave anything unfinished. This project will take me a bit of time to get up and running but I have waited 10 years to start and I with the knowledge I have gained from General Assembly, I want to take my time and do each step correctly and as best as I can.
The goal is to have a complete, hi-fi prototype by the end of December 2022. There are many brands and shoe models out there and within the next 6 months I would like to be able to have at least have four brands completed in their entirety.